Complete Works of Emile Zola (1599 page)

“What had happened?” every one asked everybody. Questions flew about in the air; the terror increased; the answers were incoherent and contradictory.

At last Luc heard one of the Mazelles, who had been to see what the matter was, and had come back, say:

“It’s a boy who stole a loaf of bread.”

And now the violent and savage crowd came tearing down the street. The thing must have happened farther up the Rue de Brias, somewhere near Mitaine’s bakery. Women screamed; an old man fell down and had to be picked up. A big gendarme, running in haste through the crowd, knocked down two persons.

Luc, too, began to run, carried away by the general excitement. And as he hurried on he passed Judge Gaume, who was saying, in his slow, measured voice, to Captain Jollivet:

“It is a child who has stolen a loaf of bread.”

This sentence was repeated everywhere, accentuated by the gallop of the running crowd. But there was so much crowding and pushing that nothing could be seen. The shop-keepers, with pale faces, standing in their doorways, seemed about to put up their shutters. A jeweller was removing the watches from his window. There was a great crush round the big gendarme, who was elbowing his way to the scene of action. And Luc, near whom were running the mayor and the sub-prefect, Gourier and Châtelard, again caught the words, uttered this time with a sort of sad accent and a little shudder:

“It’s a child who has stolen a loaf of bread.”

Then Luc, who had made his way towards the bakery in the wake of the big gendarme, saw him pushing forward to help a comrade, a tall, thin man, who was holding tightly by the wrist a boy five or six years old. Luc at once recognized Nanet, with his light, touzled hair, who was still holding his head high with the resolute air of a little man. He had just stolen a loaf from those displayed in the open window of handsome Madame Mitaine. The theft was undeniable, for Nanet was still clasping the loaf, almost as tall as himself; and it had actually been this trumpery childish theft which had convulsed and excited the whole Rue de Brias. People passing who had seen him take the loaf had denounced him to the gendarme, who hastened to the spot, but the boy had disappeared, running fast in and out of the groups upon the street, to the great indignation of the gendarme, who very possibly felt that a storm was brewing that might raise into revolt all the population of Beauclair. However, law and order triumphed, and he brought back the culprit to the place where the theft had been committed.

“Here’s the boy who stole the bread,” repeated many voices.

Madame Mitaine, much surprised by the commotion, had come, like other shop-keepers, to her front door. She was quite confounded when the gendarme, addressing her, said:

“Here, madame, is the little wretch who has just robbed you of this great big loaf.”

And, shaking Nanet, he tried to frighten him by saying, “Now, then, you are going to prison.... Say, why did you steal that loaf of bread?”

But the little fellow was not abashed. He answered dearly, in his flute-like voice:

“I have had nothing to eat since yesterday; neither has my sister.”

By this time Madame Mitaine had recovered herself. She looked at the little chap with her fine eyes, full of indulgent kindness. “Poor little mite,” she thought,
“
and his sister — where has he left her?”

For one moment the good woman hesitated, and a slight blush reddened her cheeks. Then, with the kindly smile of a beautiful woman, admired and esteemed by all her customers, she said, calmly and pleasantly:

“You have made a mistake, gendarme. He did not steal that loaf. I gave it to him.”

The gendarme stood confronting her with his mouth open, but he did not let go of Nanet. Ten people, at least, had seen the boy take the loaf and run off with it. At that moment Dacheux, the butcher, who had run across the street, took part in the affair. He was in a furious passion.

“I saw him myself,” he cried. “I just happened to be looking this way. He snatched the biggest one, and then away he ran. As sure as some one stole a five-franc piece from me the day before yesterday, and that people have been stealing to-day from Laboque and Caffiaux, this vermin of a child stole that loaf from you, Madame Mitaine.... You can’t tell me he did not.”

Still blushing for her falsehood, Madame Mitaine repeated it. She said, softly:

“You make a mistake, neighbor. I gave the boy this loaf. He did not steal it.”

And as Dacheux grew very angry with her, telling her that this sort of thing would end by having them all robbed and murdered, the sub-prefect, Châtelard, who, with a prudent eye, had looked upon the scene, went up to the gendarme and made him loose his grip on Nanet, to whom he said, in a voice low as a mute’s:

“Be off at once, boy.”

The crowd was beginning to murmur and grow angry.
“
Hadn’t the baker’s wife said she gave the child the loaf? Poor little chap! — not as high as my boot, who has had nothing to eat all day.” Shouts and hisses arose, when suddenly a voice of thunder rose above all other noises.

“Blood and thunder! is it brats not six years old who today are to set us an example? The child was right. He who is starving may take anything. Yes, everything in these shops belongs to us, and it is because you are cowards that you are starving!”

The crowd was as agitated as is water in a pond when a stone is thrown into it. Questions at once were asked. “Who is he? Who is he?”

“It is Lange, the potter; it is Lange!” Luc then saw in the middle of groups which were drawing back from him a short, sturdy man, about five-and-twenty, with a square head bristling with black hair and a black beard. His look was that of a rustic; but his eyes were full of intelligence; he spoke with his hands in his pockets, and with occasional poetic flights, like an unformed poet, crying aloud his dreams.

“Food, money, houses, clothing, are all ours. We have been robbed of them; we have the right to take them back. Not to-morrow, but this very evening, we ought to enter into possession of the land, the mines, the factories, and all Beauclair, if we were men enough to accomplish it. There are not two ways; there is but one; and that is to overthrow the whole edifice, to destroy all authority by the axe, so that the people, to whom everything belongs, may reconstruct society.” He frightened the women. Men, alarmed by the aggressive vehemence of his words, heard him in silence, and I then drew away, apprehensive of consequences. Few understood him. The greater part were not prepared for such revolt; they were too much crushed as wage-earners. What was the use of such talk? They would suffer from hunger all the same, and he would go to prison.

“Oh, I know you do not dare,” went on Lange, in a stream of contemptuous raillery. “But there will be — plenty of people who will dare, some day. They will blow up your Beauclair, unless it has fallen before that time of its own rottenness. You have no noses; you cannot smell, this very night, how everything is putrid, and all, like vile carrion, is in a state of decomposition. All is good for nothing but for manure, and we have no need of a great prophet to foretell a mighty wind which will carry away this town, and all its robbers, all its murderers — I mean our masters.... Let it crumble! let it burst! Death to it all, I say!”

The scandal became so great that the sub-prefect, Châtelard, though he disapproved of interference, felt he must do something to stop this address. Some one had to be arrested. The gendarmes flung themselves on Lange, and carried him off down a side-street that was dark and deserted, and there at length their tramp was no longer heard. The sub-prefect was aware that in the crowd that had listened to him there was not much sympathy, and was satisfied that any movement to support him had been quickly suppressed. The audience dispersed, and the crowd resumed its slow and silent procession, in the black mud, from one end of the street to the other.

But Luc shuddered; the prophetic threat of the orator seemed to be the sequence of all the horrible things that he had seen and heard since dusk upon that day. So much wickedness and misery seemed to call for that last catastrophe which he, too, had felt was brooding over the horizon, like a revengeful cloud which held fire to bum and blot out Beauclair. He was pained, for he had a horror of violence. What! — could the potter be right? Would nothing but violence, robbery, and murder bring back justice? Quite overcome by these thoughts, he fancied that he saw pass before him, as a vision, among the hard, dark faces of the workmen, the pale countenances of Mayor Gourier, Judge Gaume, and Captain Jollivet. Then came the faces of the two Mazelles, pallid with terror; all seemed to pass before him under a glare of gas-light. The street seemed horrible. His one idea now was to administer pity and consolation. He would overtake Nanet; he would follow him and find out in what dark corner Josine had found refuge.

Nanet walked on and on, with all the spirit he could put into his little legs. And Luc, who had seen him run off up the Rue de Brias, in the direction of the Pit, soon caught up with him, for the poor, dear child had great difficulty in getting along with his big loaf of bread. He held it against his breast with both arms, being much afraid of dropping it, fearing, too, lest some cruel man or some big dog might snatch it from him. When he heard the steps of Luc coming up fast behind him, he was assailed by a dreadful fear, and tried to run. But, having looked behind him, he recognized, by the light from one of the nearest shops, the gentleman who had smiled at him and his sister; so he felt reassured, and let himself be overtaken.

“Shall I carry your loaf for you?” asked the young man.

“Oh no; I’ll keep it. I am so glad to have it.”

By this time they were on the high-road outside of Beauclair, in all the darkness of a heavy, stormy sky. Far in the distance they could perceive the lights of the Pit; and Luc heard the little footfalls of the boy going pit-a-pat in the mud, while he clasped the loaf more tightly and raised it above his head, that it might not get muddy.

“Do you know where you are going?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Is it far from here?”

“No, not very.”

Nanet had been assailed by a vague fear; he walked on more slowly. Why should the gentleman want to know? The little man, who felt himself to be the sole protector of his big sister, tried to be careful and cunning. But Luc, understanding what was passing in his mind, and wishing to convince him that he was a friend, picked him up suddenly in his arms, at a moment when the little fellow, with his short legs, came near tumbling into a mud-puddle.

“Houp la! Look out, my little man, if you don’t want to butter your bread with mud.”

This speech conquered little Nanet, who had felt the genial warmth of those strong, brotherly arms. He burst into a hearty, childish laugh, and at once began familiarly to
tutoyer
his new friend.

“Oh! thou art strong, and gentle, too,” he said.

And he trotted along beside this friend, without any further anxiety.

But where could Josine have got to? The road went on and on. Luc fancied that he recognized Josine waiting motionless in the shadow of every tree-trunk. They drew near the Pit. The blows of the great steam-hammer seemed to shake the earth, while all around was lighted by a cloud of fire and smoke, shot through by electric rays. Nanet, without going past the works, turned on to the bridge and crossed the Mionne, so that Luc found himself brought back nearly to the place where he had first seen them that evening. Then, suddenly, the child started into a brisk run, and Luc lost sight of him, but he heard him crying out with a joyous laugh:

“Here, sister! Here, sister! Just see what I’ve got for you! Isn’t it grand?”

At the end of the bridge the bank went steeply down to the Mionne, and a bench had been placed there under a palisade opposite to the Pit, which was smoking and buzzing on the other side of the river. Luc, in the darkness, had nearly fallen over the palisade, when he heard the boy’s laughter change to screams and tears. He recovered himself, and understood Nanet’s outcries when he saw Josine lying on the bench in a swoon. She had come there, and had dropped down faint with hunger and suffering. She had let her little brother leave her alone, not comprehending what, with the boldness of a street gamin, he was planning to do to aid her. And now, when he came back, he found her as cold as death. In despair, he broke into great sobs.

“Oh, sister! wake up! Here is something to eat. Eat, sister. I have got some bread.”

Tears came into Luc’s eyes. So much misery, such a frightful destiny, such privation and sorrow to have fallen to the lot of beings so helpless, so brave, and so interesting! He ran quickly to the Mionne, dipped his handkerchief in the water, and came back with it to bathe the temples of Josine. Happily the night, bad as the weather was, was not cold. Then he took the poor girl’s hands in his and rubbed them. At last she sighed. She appeared to be awakening from a hideous dream. But she had been so overcome by her long unconsciousness that nothing seemed to astonish her. It seemed natural that her brother should be there with his big loaf, and even that he should be accompanied by the tall, handsome gentleman, whom she recognized. Perhaps she fancied that it was the gentleman who had brought her the bread. Her poor, weak fingers were not able to break the crust; he had to help her. He broke the bread into little bits and gave them to her slowly, one at a time, that she might not choke herself in her haste to still her terrible hunger. Then her tender body, worn and pitiful, began to tremble, and she wept uncontrollably, eating all the while, and moistening every mouthful with her tears. She had the voracity, the eagerness, of some half-starved animal which can hardly swallow but is in haste to eat. Gently, with an aching heart, almost beside himself with pity, Luc held her hands and went on feeding her. Never afterwards could he forget that communion of suffering and kindness, that bread of life given to the most miserable and attractive of God’s creatures.

Nanet, in the mean time, breaking off his share of the loaf, ate like a little ogre. He was proud of his exploit, and was much astonished to see his sister crying. Why should she cry now, when they were having such a feast? Then, when he had finished, quite amazed at having had a full repast, he all of a sudden fell against his sister and slept the happy sleep of little children who go to rest exchanging smiles with the angels. And Josine, pressing him to her side with her right arm, recovered herself a little and leaned against the back of the bench, while Luc sat by her side, unwilling to leave her there all night with the sleeping child. He had begun to comprehend that if her movements had appeared somewhat awkward, it arose from her wounded hand, round which she had retwisted, as well as she could, the bandage spotted with blood. He began a conversation by asking her: